Happy Thanksgiving world!
I guess that this is a good day to begin because I'm very grateful for the ability to think and create in a way that brings me great satisfaction. I hope that I can overcome my daily issues with procrastination to keep things up to date here on-line, as well as commit to completing at least one 'finished' painting each week...not the watercolor figure sketches from the Monday Night Drawing (MND) Group, but real paintings.
Saying that out loud in a blog will hopefully force me into submission and keep me at the easel.
As I procrastinated in actually beginning to write here, I came across these two terrific quotations on line (thanks to Nancy McCarthy and her website):
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through".
— Ira Glass, NPR "This American Life"
"When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out." - Philip Guston
Off to Thanksgiving dinner...
I guess that this is a good day to begin because I'm very grateful for the ability to think and create in a way that brings me great satisfaction. I hope that I can overcome my daily issues with procrastination to keep things up to date here on-line, as well as commit to completing at least one 'finished' painting each week...not the watercolor figure sketches from the Monday Night Drawing (MND) Group, but real paintings.
Saying that out loud in a blog will hopefully force me into submission and keep me at the easel.
As I procrastinated in actually beginning to write here, I came across these two terrific quotations on line (thanks to Nancy McCarthy and her website):
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through".
— Ira Glass, NPR "This American Life"
"When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out." - Philip Guston
Off to Thanksgiving dinner...
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